


Mr. Moonlight

by MeanieQueenie



Category: The Beatles
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-22 21:43:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7454953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeanieQueenie/pseuds/MeanieQueenie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Paul McCartney: Bassist. Singer. Werewolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mr. Moonlight

The first time Paul changes, he is 15. He’s been warned about it since he was born, but he isn’t prepared for the pain. His bones break and his skin feels like its burning. He’s torn apart and put back together again, but when it’s over it feels like the most natural thing ever like he’s finally free.

Even though he was just invited to be in a band, his dad immediately whisks him off to Scotland to teach him everything. They spend a month in the woods in their wolf forms, training, learning, and hunting. When it’s over and Paul finally returns to his normal self, he finds he no longer looks like himself. He’s lost all his baby fat and is even surprised that he grew taller.

His father just slaps him on the back when he finds Paul staring at the mirror. “Happened to me too.”

John, the boy who invited Paul to join his band, just teases him, “Oh, look who became a man while he was gone!” John doesn’t know how right he is.

Mike meets him with questions and inquisitive glances, but Paul doesn’t know how to describe it beyond “Different”.

And it is different. He’s different. He can smell better, see farther, and run faster. He also has so many hormones and emotions flowing through him, he’s surprised his human body can contain it all. He’s hungry all the time and he has so much energy, he ends up putting more work into practice just to get rid of it all.

And it’s also a lot easier to keep his secret than he thought it would be. No one believes in werewolves except the crazy old lady down the street and no one listens to her either. But then there’s John Lennon. John Fucking Lennon who asks too many questions and comes over uninvited, sometimes even in the middle of the night. Paul is secretly pleased that John is too interested in him because Paul is also way too interested in John to be natural, but it’s hard to keep a secret like this from a man like John Lennon.

One day after practice, Paul realizes exactly how dangerous John Lennon is. 

“Y’know, I came over late last night.” John casually mentions, but Paul tenses up immediately.

Shit, last night was a full moon, the only night he was forced to be in his other form. He was suddenly thankful he had asked his dad to take them out for once instead of staying home.

John continued, not noticing Paul’s trembling hands, “Mike was the only one there! Where were you an’ Jim?”

“Da’ and I went fishin’”

“In the middle of the night? Without Mike?”

“Yeah. If you want good catfish, you’ve got to fish at night. Besides, Mike hates fishing.”

Paul’s thankful his dad already came up with these excuses in advance, but he’s unsure how much John buys it, so Paul distracts him, “Want to spend the night?”

And all is forgiven in John’s world. For now.

~~~

Between school and wolfing out, Paul spends all his free time with John or the band. It’s easier with the band. They don’t think it’s weird that he goes missing once a month, he doubts they even notice, but John always questions it, to the point that he starts calling it Paul’s time of the month.

Paul just hits him and laughs about it. Of course, it would be much easier to drop John, to leave him and just jam with George instead, but it’s worth it. John is worth the lies and extra precautions because playing with him and writing he later finds are special.

John knows there is something off about Paul McCartney, something really off, but everyone he talks to about it doesn’t see Paul like John does. Paul comes off as carefree and stuck in his own little world, but John knows Paul notices everything. Paul notices when Ivan is wearing a new cologne to pull the birds, tells Len to go to the doctor weeks before he’s sent off with tuberculous meningitis, and he always hears it when someone messes up during practice.

And he definitely notices everything about John. Paul knows what to say and when he should say nothing at all. Paul knows when John is feeling down or when he just wants to drink and have fun. John thinks he knows everything about Paul too, but then he does or says something so weird, so off and not-Paul that John goes back to wondering what Paul is hiding from him. He doesn’t know why he feels this way, but John is so determined, so dedicated to seeing all of Paul laid out in front of him, every nook and cranny that makes Paul up displayed just for him. 

So John invites Paul over constantly, seeking to find this secret. He finds out little things mostly, like how Paul likes his tea or that he happens to be quite ticklish. It is on a late spring night that he finds out the details of Ms. McCartney’s death and he lets himself believe that’s the secret that Paul didn’t want to talk about. John wishes that was the secret so fervently that he almost forgets why he thought something was up in the first place.

And then George Harrison comes into the picture.

~~~

George Harrison can describe John Lennon perfectly with the word “difficult”. Don’t get him wrong, he likes John. John is funny and clever and so more suave than he will ever be, but John gets touchy about little things and once he’s decided something, he doesn’t change his mind easily. Hell, it took months working on John to finally be officially accepted into the band, despite that he had already been playing with them.So George is outright surprised when John asks him to spend the night instead of Paul.

“Uh, sure, is Paul kippin’ at yours tonight too?” It’s natural to assume Paul would be there. George rarely spends time with John without Paul there.

“Nah. The git refuses. Says he has to visit family or some bullshit.” John rolls his eyes, leading George back to his place.

“Really? Didn’t he just go visit family?”

“That’s what I said! He’s always goin’ off once a month with stupid excuses. Suppose he’s on his period?”

George frowns, because Paul hasn’t always done that, just in the past year. He doesn’t know what it means, but it can’t be bad and he wants John to like him, so he tells John everything he knows. It feels good for once to be on John’s side poking fun at Paul.

“Nah, Macca hasn’t hit puberty yet. Besides, he didn’t use to do that. His father did, though.”

John pauses for a moment, before pursuing his line of inquiry. “His da’? How d’you know that?”

“Paul and Mike used to spend the night once a month since their da’ wouldn’t be at home. I guess Paul’s goin’ with him now.”

John drops the topic and starts chattering about how to best nick a record from the shop down the street. George doesn’t think anything about John’s questions, forgets it even, but John wonders about those answers for hours after George has fallen asleep on his floor, slightly snoring.

What was Paul McCartney up to?

~~~

Before he started changing, Paul was just another randy schoolboy. Afterward, it’s like he has a perpetual boner. Anything sets him off, a woman crossing the street, bumping into someone on the bus, and even a man that winks at him at the bar one night. He likes everyone, regardless of gender, as long as they’re pretty enough. It scares the hell out of him, the idea that he’s turned on by a guy, so he ignores it the best he can. But it’s even worse when he goes into heat, especially the first time it happens. For two weeks, he can’t think of anything but sex. He masturbates so much, his dick becomes chafed and raw, but the hard-on never goes away. At the bars, he fucks every girl who’s down, usually for multiple rounds.

And he even thinks about his friends. He thinks about shoving his cock down George’s throat and John’s cock inside him, thrusting into him against every alley they pass on their way to the bars. After the two weeks are over, Paul almost cries in relief when his dick softens and he has the best sleep in his life.

It is the morning after that his dad decides to have a talk with him about it.

“So… you’ve just had your first heat.”

“Yeah.”

Paul is very uncomfortable with this topic. He’s staring at the table, playing with his food, but Jim knows he has to talk about this because he wished he had someone to talk to after his first heat.

“I want you to know that it’s okay. Whatever you did to get through it is okay.”

Paul just nods, wanting to get this conversation over with.

“Paul. Did you have any questions? Did anything happen that you were worried about?”

Paul doesn’t want to mention his sudden interest in men because it’s wrong, but he hasn’t ever been interested before the change and he’s sure something’s wrong and his dad will surely help him. “Umm… It… it’s uh… making me want men too. How do I get that to go away?”

And Paul is expecting shouting and anger, but all he gets from his dad is laughter. “Oh Paul, you don’t get rid of that. It’s completely natural.”

“What? No, it isn’t.”

“Paul, wolves have queer sex.” Paul just looks at him, shell-shocked, so Jim continues, “Humans don’t think it’s natural, but werewolves know better. We’re the most in touch a human can get with nature. Wolves do it, so why wouldn’t werewolves?”

“So what you’re telling me is I can’t fix it.”

“Nope. You’re just going to have to be careful about humans finding out but you already know how to do that, don’t you? I never had those feelings, but your uncle has actually had several affairs in his lifetime, some lasted quite a while.”

~~~

Julia Lennon dies on a Tuesday. Paul remembers this distinctly because he had always thought nothing happened on Tuesdays. Tuesdays are boring. But not this Tuesday. 

Because this Tuesday is the worst day of John Lennon’s life. Paul knows this immediately once he sees John’s face after John crawled through his window that night. but doesn’t know why. He doesn’t question John as he silently sobs into his shoulder.

It is John who breaks the silence instead, “How do you live without a mum? How do you survive the pain?”

Paul remembers his mother slowly deteriorating away in front of him, dreams about it frequently even now. Months before she died, she stopped shifting, her body too fragile to even handle that. He recalls her dark fur underneath his fingers. She always visited Mike and him before she went out for her adventures.

He never got to shift with her. “I focus on the people still with me, like you John.”

“How? Me Mum’s dead, Macca! What else is there?”

John spends the night crying before he finally passes out. Paul stays up, though, just in case he has nightmares.

He doesn’t bother telling John it will be okay.

~~~

When he tells his dad that he’s going to Hamburg, Jim flips out.

“Paul McCartney. That is literally the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

“But Da’, its fifteen pounds a week! The band will actually be making a living!”

“It doesn’t matter if your band is making a living if you’re dead! What are you going to do for the full moons? What if someone pushes you over the edge and you slip? You won’t have anyone to protect you!”

“You and I both know I can handle it! I won’t get to rely on you forever! Mike’s about to change, he needs your attention, not me!”

It’s still a no, but Paul slips out the window for Hamburg anyways.

But Jim is completely right. They’re expected to play every night, and it’s pulling teeth in order to get full moons off. A few months, the moon is fortunately in the morning, but Paul’s had more than a few close scares where he’s literally running off the stage at the end of the night to change.

But it isn’t his strange behavior once a month that ends up tipping John off, it’s something else entirely.

It’s during one of John’s bar fights. John usually has everything in control during his fights, to the point that Paul doesn’t normally step in at all. But then Paul spots a man twice John’s size clutching a broken bottle and Paul acts without thinking.

Paul doesn’t really remember picking the man up completely over his head and throwing him, but John does. Paul does see that look in John’s eyes, though, that look that lets Paul know that John thinks something is up.

Fortunately, John doesn’t bring it up until they’re alone.

“Paul, how did you do that?”

“Do what?”

John shoves Paul. “You know what! That man was twice your size! There’s no possible way you could’ve done that! And don’t think I don’t remember your time of the month! There're no excuses here to be gone, missing! once a month!”

Paul wants so badly to tell John. If anyone would understand, it’s his best mate.

“Please tell me, Macca. You can trust me. I won’t tell anyone. I won’t make fun of you even!”

And that’s all Paul needs to hear. “John, just promise me you won’t be afraid of me.”

“Afraid of you? How could anyone be afraid of girly Paulie?” Paul glares. “Fine! I promise!”

But Paul doesn’t know how to explain it (if John even believed him), so he shows him instead. As he feels his bones break and his skin bloom with pain and heat, he hopes to god this isn’t a mistake. He didn’t want to lose John.

John doesn’t scream, though, just stares. “Macca? Is that really you?” John reaches out to touch him, which Paul allows. Paul is beautiful like this, John decides. His dark black fur is thick and soft and those hazel eyes are glowing in the moonlight. Paul looks fierce and strong and like nothing could bring him down.

John knows one more thing about Paul, the one thing he’s always wanted to know.

It’s not enough.

~~~

John hasn’t stopped drinking since he sat across from Paul at the bar, but Paul doesn’t say anything about it.

It’s always best to let John Lennon speak first in these moods.

“Cyn’s pregnant.”

“So is Dot.” 

“What the fuck, Macca? How are you so calm about this? Don’t you realize this is the end? You’re gonna have to get married and shit?”

“This isn’t the end. The band is going to continue. We’re going to continue.”

Paul doesn’t have to get married, but John doesn’t know that. John doesn’t know what Paul knows. John’s drinking because he’s being tied down, but Paul’s drinking at the inevitable miscarriage of his child. Because Dot isn’t a werewolf. Paul hasn’t turned her, hasn’t even thought of telling her what he gets up to on certain nights. Dot’s body is going to reject their child, like all pregnancies involving a werewolf child and a human mother.

He breaks up with Dot soon after she miscarries. He can’t stand her sad eyes every time she looks at him. He wants to shake her and tell her it’s all his fault, that she couldn’t have saved the baby, no matter what. He especially can’t stand the way she touches her stomach, looking for something missing, and his guilt for being secretly glad the baby didn’t make it.

~~~

John doesn’t only keep Paul’s other side a secret, he actively helps him hide it. When gigs are scheduled, the older man makes sure none of them lie on the full moon. The few times Paul manages to lose control, John settles him down and distracts everyone else.

It’s a blessing and Paul learns to depend on him, which gives John a certain thrill, to be trusted like that. So the bassist is not surprised at all when John marches into the living room, furious, and heading out of their hotel room.

“John, what’s got into you?”

“Bloody Brian! I just found out he scheduled a press party for the 19th! I told him we can’t do that date two weeks ago!”

“Umm… It’ll be fine John. We can do that.”

“NO! We can’t! It’s a full moon!” 

“I’m not going to turn that night. My heat is coming up, so I won’t be forced to change to conserve energy.”

John blinks in confusion, stepping closer. “Heat? What the fuck is that?”

Paul looks down to hide his blush. He never told John about his heat. It was frankly embarrassing. “I… uh… sort of have a constant need for sex for two weeks. It’s designed to keep population high but most see it as a nuisance.”

“Oh,” John says simply, before smirking down at Paul. “So the usual?”

Paul bursts out in laughter.

But when he wakes up three weeks later with an erection and the dirtiest thoughts known to man, it is no laughing matter to Paul, but John seems to think so, joking around and sending every girl Paul’s way.

The party they were at occurred a week into his heat. With only one week left to go, Paul was already tired of fucking random birds. 

“Macca!” John called as he approached Paul, wine in hand. “How’s lil Paulie?” John gestured to the noticeable bulge in Paul’s pants.

“Raw and tired and I want this to end already.”

“Aww, poor Macca! 20 pounds says you won’t last the party ‘fore you drag some girl away.”

“’m not takin’ that bet because I already did that. Twice.”

“Damn, son, your dick is relentless. How do you even survive this?”

“I don’t.”

“Anythin’ I can do?”

Paul considers John for a moment. He had never actually conquered his sexual urges for John over the years. In fact, they had gotten worse and with his heat hitting him full blast, it was hard to keep his thoughts to himself. “Actually, yes.”

~~~

It is after a long night of making love, one of many over the past two years, that John brings up the subjects. He had been thinking about it for months now, but John didn’t have the guts to bring it up to Paul until now.

“Paul, I have a question. How did you become a werewolf?”

“It’s like a sickness almost. It’s hereditary but you can also change people. Me’ Da’ was one so I am too.”

“You change people? How?”

“Just bite them under the full moon. Nothing big.”

John doesn’t say anything for a long time, so long that it stirred the bassist from a quickly approaching slumber.

“Macca, turn me. I want to be like you.”

Chills ran down Paul’s back at those words. “No, John.”

“Why not? Your da’ turned your mum, right? You can turn me and we’ll be together even on the full moon.”

“John, once you tire of me, you’ll be able to move on and return to normalcy, maybe be a real family man even. But once I turn you, you won’t be able to do that anymore. Nothing will be the same. You’ll be limited by who will accept you. You’ll always have to watch your back. I don’t want that for you. You deserve more than that.”

“Paul McCartney, this isn’t about what you want, it’s about what I want. And I don’t want anybody else but you. I’ll never tire of you, I promise. I just want to be there with you. I want to understand everything you go through. Besides, I have practice already on how to hide stuff from humans.”

It’s still a no from Paul, but John has a lifetime to convince him.

~~~

The first time John changes, he is 23. Paul tells him it hurts, like nothing else in the world, but John is still caught unaware. His muscles are stretched and knotted and his skin feels like he has jumped into the coldest lake in existence. He feels like someone has crushed him into itty bitty tiny bits and sewn him back together again. But when it’s over, Paul helps him onto his feet and they run together into the woods, under the pale moonlight. It’s the most natural thing ever like he’s finally free.


End file.
